Mark Martin announces plans for 2011
On Monday I posted a piece about how Mark Martin could possibly be unseated in the No. 5 car one year early for Kasey Kahne, who is scheduled to take over the No. 5 car in 2012 (http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/05/rick-hendrick-talks-about-2011.html). On Friday Mark Martin answered questions about next season and beyond.
Even though Chris Myers (more on him later) and Darrell Waltrip think that Kahne will be in the No. 5 car next year, Martin says he’ll be in it. When someone asked Martin, “So you will definitely be in the 5 car in 2011?” He responded, “Yes.”
Martin answers questions at Dover (Tweetphoto-Kendra Jacobs)
ESPN’s Lee Corso should pop up on the prerace show this evening and tell Myers and DW, “Not so fast, my friend(s).”
Beyond 2011, Martin isn’t quite sure what’s going to happen. “There are scenarios beginning to formulate, but I would expect it to be a long time until those boil down to real options,” he stated. “It could be as much as a year until those boil down to real options.”
Brian Vickers out for the remainder of 2010
Brian Vickers had to sit out last weekend’s event at Dover because of health reasons, and this weekend he announced that he will sit out for the rest of the season. He announced that, “what has happened and due to the blood thinners I am on, I will be out a minimum of six months – the rest of the year… If something changes and I can get in sooner, then great. Right now it’s going to be the remainder of the season,” Vickers said. “As you can imagine, this is killing me, no pun intended.”
But the severity of the situation was broken a few minutes later when Vickers joked, “I can actually race on blood thinners, I just can’t crash. So I told them if I promise I won’t crash, will they let me race?”
Casey Mears took over the No. 83 car last week, and he’ll be in the seat this evening, but beyond tonight Red Bull Racing’s general manager Jay Frye said, the team was still deciding how it will proceed the rest of the season. He said Mears might be in the car and Red Bull would ask two road course specialists to sit in the car for the races at Infineon and Watkins Glen.
Vickers will try to be around his team as much as possible, but won’t attend every race. However he plans on being ready for the 2011 season. “I do expect to be back in the car next season and to win the Daytona 500,” Vickers said.
Chris Myers makes questionable comments on radio
On Monday Myers, one of Fox’s NASCAR announcers, filled in for Dan Patrick on his national radio show, and mentioned NASCAR’s philanthropic work in aid of the Nashville flooding. Myers said,
“It’s a great country here. We have disasters issues when people pull together and help themselves and I thought the people in Tennessee, unlike — I’m not going to name names — when a natural disaster hits people weren’t standing on a rooftop trying to blame the government, okay. They helped each other out through this.
And Mike Helton, president of NASCAR, Tony Stewart, among some drivers went from the race over to the middle Tennessee area where still a lot of hardworking, tax-paying, legal American citizens have been affected by the floods and are trying to rebuild their lives and they are helping out. And I think that other people around the country, of course the music industry in and around Nashville helping, without making a big deal out of it and I think that's a good thing.”
Read that how you wish, but it’s pretty obvious Myers was picking on the people of New Orleans. He apologized. “I would very much like to apologize to you and the people of New Orleans for the inappropriate and insensitive remarks I made this past Monday,” Myers said. “Clearly, these remarks demonstrated poor judgment and I sincerely regret making them.”
Myers was in New Orleans for the Allstate Sugar Bowl on January 1st, as the sideline reporter for Tim Tebow’s final collegiate game. The University of Florida defeated the University of Cincinnati 51-24.
Myers got a stern talking to from Fox executives and everyone has learned from their mistakes and is moving on.
(Finally) Kentucky Speedway owners drop lawsuit against NASCAR
The former ownership group of Kentucky Speedway dropped their lawsuit against NASCAR and International Speedway Corporation. The deadline to appeal an earlier ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court was Wednesday, and that deadline passed with no action.
Former majority owner Jerry Carroll told the Associated Press that, “the matter was closed and he was optimistic that it opens the door for new owners Speedway Motorsports Inc. to finally bring a Cup race to the track.”
Last night on WLWT-Channel 5 sports anchor Ken Broo mistakenly told those watching that NASCAR can now move a race to the Speedway. NASCAR can allow Bruton Smith and SMI to move a race to Kentucky, but the sanctioning body has no rule over actually moving a race to the speedway. Either ISC or SMI would have to move a Cup race from a track which already has a date.
A few weeks back I cited reports by Bob Pockrass and others who said that SMI might wait until 2012 to move a Cup race to the facility in Sparta, Ky., because the new ownership would like to improve the facility and add seating (http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/05/nascar-news-and-notes-drivers-look.html). They said, “a Sprint Cup race in 2011, may not be feasible because of a variety of factors, including capital improvements necessary for the facility.”
I’ll keep my eyes and ears peeled for new stories on the nearest race track to Cincinnati as well as the Sprint All-Star race this evening. Have a great Saturday afternoon.
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